Plessy v. Ferguson

Study the 1904 political cartoon illustrating the effects of Plessy v. Ferguson and answer the question.

What did the artist believe regarding US society under the ruling in Plessy?

• A.

  The federal government would provide services for Black Americans when states failed to.

• B.

  State governments discriminated against Black Americans by providing inferior facilities.

• C.

  Black Americans and white Americans benefited from the case's effects despite unequal facilities.

• D.

  The Supreme Court took an important step toward ending racial segregation in the United States.

Read the excerpt from a pamphlet from the early 1900s and answer the question.

In Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee:

YOU MUST PAY YOUR POLL TAX.

YOU MUST REGISTER AND HOLD YOUR CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION.

If you can read and write you can register.

— What a Colored Man Should Do to Vote, 1900

How did rules such as those in the excerpt disenfranchise Black American men in the early 1900s?

• A.

  State laws required Black American men to own property in order to vote.

• B.

  The law required Black Americans to have a high school diploma in order to vote. 

• C.

  The law said that Black American men did not have the right to vote.

• D.

  State laws made it difficult for Black American men to exercise their voting rights.

In 1930, the NAACP commissioned Nathan Margold to develop a strategy for ending racial discrimination and segregation that the Supreme Court ruled was constitutional in Plessy v. Ferguson. Based on your knowledge of the NAACP’s strategy, what did Margold provide to the NAACP?

• A.

  a proposal to attack the separate but equal doctrine by challenging discrimination through the court system

• B.

  a proposal to focus on steady economic development of the African American community rather than confrontation

• C.

  a proposal to organize a march on Washington, DC, to demand the end of segregation in the defense industry

• D.

  a proposal to help African Americans escape the effects of segregation by facilitating their emigration to Africa

In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court's ruling was based on which finding of the court?

• A.

  that racial segregation was not inherently harmful

• B.

  that segregated facilities could never be truly equal

• C.

  that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to state laws

• D.

  that the Fourteenth Amendment could be applied to state laws

What 1896 court case ruled that separate facilities for African Americans and whites were legal as long as the facilities were equal?

• A.

  Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

• B.

  Brown v. Board of Education

• C.

  Plessy v. Ferguson

• D.

  Dred Scott v. Sandford

What did NOT motivate the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People?

• A.

  violence against African Americans

• B.

  segregation of public schools in the South

• C.

  racially discriminatory employment practices

• D.

  the decision in Brown v. Board of Education

What was the effect of the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson?

• A.

  Discriminatory hiring practices were outlawed in the United States.

• B.

  Racial segregation remained commonplace throughout the country.

• C.

  States were prohibited from passing laws limiting African American suffrage.

• D.

  African Americans were elected to serve in the federal government for the first time.